Sunday, September 14, 2014

Fall's around the corner

At under $2400, it's not a bad deal - you can carry your ATV, dirt bikes, or bicycles to your camping place, offload them, and set up camp fairly quickly, with your sleeping quarters above the mud and rocks.

When I was a kid, my parents had an Appleby tent trailer - an aluminum bodied shell with a frame that held a canvas tent. We used it extensively on trips to Oklahoma and Colorado.

Ours was silver, about the texture of an old tacklebox, but you get the idea.

You can sometimes find an old Appleby hull on Ebay or Craigslist, but replacing the canvas can run $800-$1000.

Another entrant in this genre can be found at Northern Tool, but it's a bit pricey compared to the LifeTime:

Another avenue might be to use a standard 5x8 trailer platform, and have a local welding shop fabricate some expanded steel side panels that would fold out to form the beds, then have a local upholstery shop modify the floor tub of an off-the-shelf tent. Total cost would probably run $1200-1500. I don't have a requirement to haul an ATV, but being able to transport a KLR or DR-650 or a couple of mountain bikes would be a real plus.

Maybe it's nostalgia, but I like the concept, mainly for its practicality. The Northern Tool version doesn't hold much appeal, but the Lifetime (Sam's Club) seems pretty nifty inasmuch as it is flexible, and one could transport a motorcycle and/or some bicycles to the camping area (or use it for other utility purposes), and it doesn't take much space to store.